Hidden paintings revealed under Tudor portraits go on show at the National Portrait Gallery

 art  No Responses »
Jan 032013
 

The  has dis­covered hid­den paint­ings beneath Tudor por­traits in the Col­lec­tion. The dis­cov­er­ies are dis­played from today as part of Hid­den: Unseen Paint­ings Beneath Tudor Por­traits in the recently remod­elled Room 3; admis­sion if free.

Recent ana­lysis under­taken as part of the Mak­ing Art in Tudor Bri­tain pro­ject used sci­entific tech­niques to ana­lyse the por­traits in the dis­play to increase the under­stand­ing of the work­ing prac­tices of Tudor artists. The pro­ject has used infrared reflec­to­graphy and x-radiography to explore the pro­cesses employed in mak­ing these por­traits, which has enabled exam­in­a­tion of the lay­ers beneath the paint sur­face. It was dur­ing this tech­nical research that hid­den images behind the por­traits were discovered.

X-rays revealed that under­neath the of the Lord Treas­urer and poet Thomas Sack­ville (by an unknown artist in 1601), was a fully worked up ver­sion of The Fla­gel­la­tion of Christ painted under the sur­face.… [con­tinue reading]

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Sylvano Bussotti: flamboyant composer, poet, set and costume designer, theatre director, and… and… and…

 ballet, costume design, opera, set design  No Responses »
Dec 272012
 

Sil­vano Bus­sotti, known as Sylvano, is an Italian eccent­ric, some say genius, and the word ‘flam­boy­ant’ appears in many art­icles about this mod­ern Renais­sance man. He is a com­poser, poet, set and cos­tume designer, painter, journ­al­ist, actor, singer, theatre and film dir­ector and some­time bad boy of the arts. Inter­na­tion­ally he is more known as a com­poser, and the Oxford Grove Music Encyc­lo­pae­dia describes his music thus:

His music at once exults in and cri­ti­cizes the dec­ad­ence of mod­ern­ism: his nota­tion is often flam­boy­antly vir­tu­oso in its graphic style and fiercely demand­ing to per­form; his works tend to abound in cross-references, to each other and to his per­sonal life, which would seem col­our­ful; he mixes a sen­su­ous­ness amount­ing to erot­i­cism with an extreme arti­fi­ci­al­ity.… [con­tinue reading]

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Maria Callas’ costume for Macbeth at La Scala in 1952 in photos

 costume design, opera  No Responses »
Dec 162012
 

PB270057 700x464 Maria Callas costume for Macbeth at La Scala in 1952 in photosMaria Cal­las’ cos­tumes evoke a spe­cial fris­son of excite­ment: know­ing that she was wear­ing it when she sang a role so loved from a record­ing, and, for a few, hav­ing actu­ally seen her 60 years ago in the theatre dressed in the same cos­tume now sit­ting on a mannequin.

’s pre­serves these cos­tumes, and those of many other legendary opera sing­ers, with lov­ing care. There is no per­man­ent exhib­i­tion of cos­tumes at the theatre or its museum, some­thing which should be redressed (pun intended).

Here are some phở­tos of the cos­tume designed for Cal­las’ Lady Macbeth by Nic­ola Benois in 1952.… [con­tinue reading]

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Boris Bilinsky: costume and set designer for ballet, opera and film and legendary graphic artist

 costume design, set design  1 Response »
Dec 062012
 

Bilinsky Casanova Boris Bilinsky: costume and set designer for ballet, opera and film and legendary graphic artistBoris Bil­in­sky was born in Odessa in 1900, but left Rus­sia in 1920, escap­ing from the after­math of the Revolu­tion. He settled in Ber­lin where he was still able to col­lab­or­ate with Rus­sian theatres, but in 1923 he moved to and worked with the Stu­dio Albatros, a pro­duc­tion com­pany in Montreuil. Albatros had only been set up in 1922, but was soon to pro­duce some of the most import­ant mas­ter­pieces of early cinema, includ­ing Abel Gance’s mam­moth Napoléon in 1927.

Dur­ing this period Bil­in­sky designed numer­ous cos­tumes for French cinema such as Jean Epstein’s Le lion de Mogols and a series of exquis­ite designs for Alex­an­der Volkoff’s film Cas­anova.

For ten years Bil­in­sky pro­duced designs for two or three films a year.… [con­tinue reading]

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Amy Winehouse portrait bought for the nation

 art, music  1 Response »
Nov 262012
 

Whinehouse NPG 449x600 Amy Winehouse portrait bought for the nationThe National Gal­lery, Lon­don, has acquired a of Amy Wine­house which will go on dis­play today.

The paint­ing, which was made shortly after the singer’s death in July 2011, was bought by the Gal­lery, with sup­port from the Art Fund, the national fun­drais­ing char­ity for art.

Painted by the internationally-renowned artist Mar­lene Dumas (who has had solo exhib­i­tions at Tate, Pomp­idou Centre and MoMA), Amy—Blue is an oil-on-canvas head study, scarcely lar­ger than a sheet of A4 paper. Work­ing primar­ily from phở­to­graphic sources, her sub­jects are often por­trayed at close-crop. Using a strik­ing palette of mainly blue and black with hints of pink and white, the artist has chosen to focus tightly on the singer’s head so the viewer is drawn to the singer’s dis­tinct­ive eyes and eye-liner.… [con­tinue reading]

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Adolphe Appia at La Scala: a new publication by the Amici della Scala

 opera, set design, theatre  No Responses »
Nov 252012
 

The  (Friends of ) was formed in 1978 to pro­mote music, art and cul­ture in and the Lom­bardy region, though the opera house is the focus of their activities.

Activ­it­ies of the Amici della Scala include schol­ar­ships for young tal­ents; gifts of musical instru­ments to young soloists; lec­tures, con­fer­ences, tele­vi­sion doc­u­ment­ar­ies and exhib­i­tions on operas pro­grammed at La Scala; and they have pub­lished around 70 books and catalogues.

Some of the most inter­est­ing of these pub­lic­a­tions are a series of mono­graphs on the set and cos­tume design­ers who have worked at La Scala, which have been pub­lished at a rate of four a year since 2002. The new batch brings the total in the series to forty.

… [con­tinue reading]

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Adelina Patti in a splendid portrait now on show in Milan

 art, opera  No Responses »
Nov 242012
 

Adelina Patti Adelina Patti in a splendid portrait now on show in Milan

Giuseppe Verdi on Adelina Patti, one of the great sing­ers of the 19th century:

When I heard her for the first time (she was eight­een) in Lon­don, I was astoun­ded not only by the mar­vel­lous per­form­ance but also by a num­ber of stage traits that revealed her great act­ing talents.

Such was the fame and bravura of Dame Adelina Patti that in the 19th Cen­tury she was paid $5000 in gold for a per­form­ance. This astound­ing amount, meant that she was paid more in an even­ing than the US Pres­id­ent was paid in a year.

This por­trait of col­oratura super­star Adelina Patti (1843 – 1919) can be seen in the museum of ’s Teatro alla Scala: +39 02 88 79 2473 / 7473… [con­tinue reading]

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